Bush and congress fiddle while the world burns

Perhaps just as pragmatic as the "yay to embryonic stem cells/boo to embryonic stem cells" debate is the possibility that this could (and I'm just throwing this out there with no empirical data to back me up) force some of this country's top researchers and many future scientists to pack it in and head somewhere where they're more receptive to this kind of research.

Hopefully it won't be China. It's already going to be China's century. It doesn't need to be China's millennium, too.

 

Actually, the more optimistic outcome is that this forces the country's top researchers and future scientists to conduct research on pluripotent stem cells in a way that doesn't kill embryos. The future seems bright in that regard. Then everyone's happy.

History may show that best (and possibly only good) move to come out of the GWB presidency was his thwarting of the hell bent ESC zealots.

 

"Hellbent ESC zealots."?
That gets a wow.
Blastocysts are not embryos, which are not human beings.

 

Which begs the question . . .

When the embryos that would have been available for research are instead tossed in the trash, do they not die anyway?

For some reason this point does not seem to get through.

 

Depends on the trash can.

 

:-X

 

Well, I use the phrase "hell bent ESC zealots" for the reason trounced cited earlier in this thread. There is no ban on any ESC research. You'd think the ESC crowd would be happy enough with that and ask fellow supporters to donate to their cause or lobby private concerns to fund it. But no, they've also got to have the money of people who think ESC research is either immoral or a dead end.

So they're either zealots or completely uninformed that there is no ban. You pick.

 

Please, Jack, you're smart enoug not to use the silly "don't use my tax money for something I think is immoral" argument. If not, can I have every dime of mine that's gotten poured into that useless rathole of a war back? And, no matter what you'd like to think, having the NIH do research guarantees that everybody has a shot at the fruits of this research. Relying on the private sector is not only morally incoherent -- the president thinks it's "murder," but that OK as long as the murder is privatized? -- but also tends to pushing the cures further towards a situation in which they will be available only to those who can afford them.
And, yes, I think we, as a nation, should contribute to science regardless of the inconvenience it might cause among the more actively superstititous of our fellow citizens.

 

Well said Fenian.

 

Actually, I wish we could have every dime poured into the useless rathole of a war back, but that ship's already sailed.

And for the record, I'm more in the camp that thinks ESC research is a dead end.  So far, it's batting .000.

 

Jack, not to take unnecessary umbrage with what you said, but virtually all medical research is 0-fer-100 until they actually hit upon a success. Some research just takes longer than others. Not to say that ESC isn't a dead end, but as a research field, we shouldn't be so quick to pull the plug on it.

 

I'm very torn on this.

I consider destruction of an embryo a human death. Bizarre being with the right wing on this one issue when I detest them so (but that's another thread)

But, someone dying young from cancer is a human death, too.

Very, very tough issue.

It's a Sophie's Choice, to an extent, for me.